7 Days To Die Now Available On Steam Early Access

The sandbox building and zombie slaying game 7 Days To Die is now on sale through Steam Early Access. To celebrate, developer The Fun Pimps is offering a discount on the game for the last days of the year.

7 Days To Die is set in the aftermath of World War 3. A mysterious virus is turning the few survivors into rampaging undead. The players are survivors living in Navezgane County, Arizona. They must gather supplies from the wilderness and abandoned cities. Raw materials can be used to create tools, weapons, and shelter. You'll need all three in order to defend against the constant zombie attacks.

The game is currently in alpha but has many of the core features in place. Players can wander the game world alone or with friends. There are over 160 crafting recipes for them to use in crafting items. Plants can be harvested and animals can be hunted for raw materials. Crafted items will degrade over time so you'll have to repair them to keep them functioning. Structures are destructible as well and can even collapse if they don't have proper supports. The alpha also includes Horde mode in which players defend a small map from nightly zombie assaults.

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Fun Pimps has a long list of other features that they want to add to the game. In the future players will be able to create their own maps and mods, or step into a randomized world. The developers want to eventually implement a narrative as well through missions, NPC's and voice acting. The world will be more life-like in time through weather effects and improved terrain graphics. Infected animals, virtual-reality support and drivable vehicles round out the developers' wishlist.

Most of all, though, the developers are hoping to clean up the bugs. 7 Days To Die is still in alpha and as such as it's still a bit of an ugly duckling. Don't expect a completely smooth experience if you purchase the game now.

"Many of our fans have commented in these early stages that they feel we are building the survival\zombie game they have always wanted," the developer said on Steam. "Our goal is to live up to this as much as we can and build a customizable, moddable game that allows users to fine tune their survival and zombie experience to create the experience players and their friends want."

7 Days To Die was funded through a Kickstarter campaign this summer. It was greenlit for Steam at around the same time. The game's Steam listing was removed for a short period of time due to some legal trouble but returned a few days later.

I've made no secret of the fact that this game excites me. The combination of survival horror and open-world building really grabs me and I hope that Fun Pimps can deliver. While I'm enthusiastic about the game, it's worth repeating my usual disclaimer about Steam Early Access: the game's going to be in rough shape and what's more, you don't need necessarily know it's going to be completely cleaned up before its launch. By purchasing a game on Early Access, you're gambling your money in exchange for playing it at an earlier date.

If you're comfortable with risking your money on a game that might never deliver on its hype, you can get it for $29.75 instead of its usual $35.